I feel like a kid again!

Today, Sunday, we were a very active group! We started our day with a special private tour of Germany's Parliament building and saw the many levels of where their government men and women work. The old building now has a magnificent glass dome atop of it that generates solar power to run the building. We got the opportunity, along with tons of other tourists, to walk around on the roof of the Parliament and take pictures of the view of Berlin from up high. We could see for miles in every direction and the city is so massive that we couldn't see the end! We even got to walk inside the giant dome and trek up the spiral walk-way to the top where there was a resting place under the oculus opening in the top. The sun was shining and it warmed the day and some of us even got a bit sun-burned!

After that we ate lunch at a local spot. Most people sampled and loved the gyro-like food. Then we traveled on to our biking tour where we each received a bike and began pedaling around the parking lot like little kids again. It felt so free to move faster than the walking pace we had been keeping up for days. Bikes allowed us to see more sites in Berlin in a faster amount of time! We had a wonderful tour guide named Emma who is a 23-year-old Scottish woman but has been living in Berlin for a year and a half. She was extremely knowledgeable when it came to Berlin history and taught us each detail about the city's sites. We saw a large Jewish Synagogue, the largest Christian Protestant Church, A Catholic Cathedral with a dome, a French Cathedral, many museums, an opera house, Check Point Charlie, a section of the Berlin Wall that is still standing, the site of Hitler's bunker where he hid out during the end of WWII and eventually committed suicide, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, and the Brandenburg Gate.

We also learned to use the Subway and U-ban systems which were easier than one might think! It has been a busy and full day but we've all learned so much about Berlin and gotten some exercise doing so. Tomorrow begins our day of media appointments and we are all looking forward to getting the ball rolling with those!!!